


It Happens

by orichan



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Office, Co-workers, Consulting, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 08:29:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20468060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orichan/pseuds/orichan
Summary: Rey Niima wasn’t Ben Solo's first choice for a manager. She was too young looking, not from a top school (and definitely not part of Snoke’s crew), but the client wanted to start the project right away and the bench was awfully thin. He hated working with unproven managers, but it was either her or Binks, and he would rather throw himself out the window than have to deal with Binks’ ineptness again.He consoled himself that this was a temporary arrangement, that in four weeks she would roll off of the project and he would never have to tolerate her presence again.Life, unfortunately (fortunately), had other plans.Written for The Writing Den's Summer Fic Exchange 2019 based on the prompt: Sugarland’s song “It Happens”.





	It Happens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ria84](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ria84/gifts).

> Thanks to my beta: Amethyst214 and PeaceBlessingPeyton

His first impression of Rey Niima was not a good one. 

To begin with, she wasn’t his first choice for a manager. She was too young looking, not from a top school (and definitely not part of Snoke’s crew), but the client wanted to start the project right away and the bench was awfully thin. He hated working with unproven managers, but it was either her or Binks, and he would rather throw himself out the window than have to deal with Binks’ ineptness again. 

He began to question his decision to staff her when she was still not on the client site with him at 9:15am. He just needed her to show up. Honestly, it wasn’t a very big ask. 

“Where are you?”

“I—” There was a loud honk. She swore, and he picked up a hint of British accent. “—I’m on the shoulder of the 101 right now.”

Shoulder of the 101? The quiet, but perpetual clicks in the background finally made sense. “You crashed?”

“What?” she sounded surprised, offended, maybe. “Are you saying that because—”

“No, not because you are a woman,” he snapped before he could stop himself. He hated it when people assumed he was a sexist asshole just because he was an asshole. “I heard hazard lights. You are on the shoulder of 101. What else am I supposed to think?”

He heard a loud inhale on the other end. “Sorry. Like I said, I had an unbelievably bad morning,” she said sheepishly and actually sounded… apologetic. “Long story short, two of the tires on the rental popped five minutes ago. So now I’m stuck on this very thin shoulder waiting for the tow truck to come. ”

More honks, followed by vibrations. It suddenly occurred to him that wherever she was stuck at wasn’t exactly safe.

“The roadside assistance guy said they will come within the next two hours based on traffic.”

Two hours sounded long, but it wasn’t like he could do anything about traffic, or where she was stuck. Except… No, no, he couldn’t possibly be thinking what he was thinking—there were forty five emails waiting for him to answer, two deliverable drafts waiting for him to tear into pieces, and he promised Snoke a final draft of the pricing model for WSI all before noon. He had no time to waste on playing prince in shining armor.

There was another honk, even louder than the honks before, and probably from a truck.

He really didn’t mean to care, but Ben felt his anxiety spike. It made no sense, but then again, the universe is a chaotic place with no real rhyme or reason.  


“Where exactly on 101 are you? I’ll come pick you up.”

* * *

Four weeks.

That was the length of time from the beginning of this project at Lumic to when Mitaka was supposed to free up...and the length of time he would have to tolerate Rey in his life. 

That was what he told himself, as she stood up to him and tore his project timeline apart on day three while calling him a monster. 

But the  irrefutable, indisputable fact of life was that nothing ever went according to plan. 

* * *

Rule number one of consulting is that surprises are fair game and everything and anything can change in a moment's notice with little rhyme or reason. The CIO of Sun Mobility had a talk with his CEO and came out of the meeting requesting to get a draft of the system design document, 2 weeks before the originally agreed upon date. The crunch abruptly brought the semblance of work-life balance to a permanent end. 

It was 8:45pm on day eleven of back-to-back late night work when Rey first made the suggestion. "How about we finish this at the hotel?"

He turned away from his computer and gaped at her like she had grown horns. They often avoided talking to each other about anything more than what was necessary, for the sake of practicality. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t surprised about the “we” in her sentence. “Sorry, what?” 

Her lips twitched. "The Marriott? You know, that ugly grey building five minutes from here? Where we are currently staying in, right now?”

He blinked, not sure how to react to the friendly banter. 

She rolled her eyes, but not with contempt like Hux or exasperation like Phas. “Think about the half decent view...the comfortable chairs...and the freshly made food we could order…” 

He glanced around at the empty office before pulling his eyes down to his computer...and his half finished work. He must admit, it wasn’t a half bad idea. The hard plastic chairs with short desks had been killing his back and, in all honesty, he wasn’t sure if he could stand another slice of lukewarm pizza for dinner. 

He looked back at her and the warm lopsided smile on her face. He felt his breath hitch. 

“Let me send out this email.”

* * *

The elevator door had almost closed when a hand shot out to stop it. Rey stepped in, breathing hard. 

He was pretty sure she ran to work. A quick scan revealed sweat running down from her brows, a crumbly suit jacket, and mismatching socks. 

“Woke up late?”

She caught her breath as she stepped into the elevator. “Yeah, missed my alarm. How did you know?” 

His lips curled into a smirked and he pointed at her inside out cardigan. 

She swore. “How was your long weekend?” she asked as she pulled off her cardigan. 

“Good,” he told her, the impersonal answer he always gave to that question. Even if Rey was in the short list of people he could more than tolerate, small talks were still tiring and his weekend was, like all weekends, uneventful. There were still twenty three floors to go, so he turned his attention back to the little monitor in the elevator to spare them from awkwardness.

"Did you go anywhere?"

He turned back to her, confused, having expected the conversation to naturally end. Sometimes he wondered if she was so inexplicably persistent simply because she was bored, or if she was part of some strange bet with her friends to make him talk. It was just so strange. “Not really,” he replied and to stop her from asking follow up questions,“You?”

"Finn and I had a few pints with some college friends on Saturday. Sunday I went rock climbing with Rose. Monday I just took it easy," she replied with that easiness that won everyone over to her side. “Did you do anything fun?”

She fixed her gaze on him as she asked the question. His instinct was telling him to shrug the question away, but he found himself giving her a proper honest answer anyway. “I went to the symphony on Saturday. Mostly, I just stayed home and read.”

She laughed at his answer and Ben couldn’t for the life of him understand what was so amusing. 

“Sorry, your answer was just so... “ she waved her hand as if she was looking for the right word. “Mundane.” 

He frowned. “What did you expect exactly?”

The top of her nose scrunched up a little. “I’m not sure. But everyone just assumes you plot for world domination over weekends with Snoke and Hux or something.”

He snorted in derision. “Only if forced at gunpoint. And even then, I am not sure if I’m willing to spend a weekend with Hux.” 

“Hmmm.” 

“What?” She obviously had an opinion about his answer. 

The elevator door chose that moment to open. She stepped out first, but not before turning to him with a half smile that made his mouth run dry. “You’re a funny guy, Ben Solo.”

* * *

“Hey, Mary agreed to participate in our session,” she told him with a triumphant grin plastered on her face. “I showed her some of our material, and she was so touched with some of the content, she started to cry.”

Needless to say, Mary, the health lead of WSI was one of those clients that Ben historically loses because she made all her decisions emotionally and Ben (as he had been told all his life) had the EQ of a rock. However, he hadn’t lost someone like Mary during the entire project because Rey had… well, she had EQ like his mother. It still astounded him just how good she was at the consulting game, even though she was literally his polar opposite. She never overtly manipulated people like Snoke, or forced people to submit through fear like him. She just gets her way because she was so easy to like, just as he was so easy to hate.

They made the perfect bad cop, good cop duo.

They made a good team.

He brought her onto his next project, and the one after that, and the one after that. 

* * *

“How did the meeting with Snoke go?” Rey asked. 

“It was… not a disaster.”  _ Because of that slide you made the other day _ , he might have told her if he was smooth like Poe. But he wasn’t, so he kept the second part silent. 

“I guessed as much,” she said, smiling at him. It’s been happening more often, yet continues to be disorienting. “You turn into a grumpy dark lord whenever you have a bad meeting with Snoke.”

He wasn’t sure if he actually wanted to know what popular media reference she was making (she was always making popular media references), but her tone was playful and he couldn’t help but smile back a little. 

A faint pink seemed to have crept onto her cheeks, but he knew it must be a trick of the light. Rey couldn’t be actually blushing, because she never blushed, not even when she gave that TED Talk in a packed conference room. She cleared her throat. “I’ve sent you the latest RFP response for Meltech.”

The mention of Meltech mercifully pulled his mind back to safer grounds. “Okay, I’ll review after my next meeting.” 

* * *

One of the newly promoted senior consultants on the business strategy team commented publicly she didn’t know what the technical team was doing in front of 20 senior clients. Kerry, the SVP of Sales, never wanted consultants to begin with and the comment gave her enough ammunition to almost derail the sprint review. It was by pure good luck that Tom, the ex-consultant SVP of Technology, was there to calm the situation enough for them to finish their agenda, but Ben knew how much damage control will now be needed. The breathing exercises his therapist had taught him was the only thing that kept him from publically ripping Jess into shreds in their sprint review retrospective.

“Can we have a quick chat?” said Rey to Jess as the meeting ended before he could ask her himself. Rey gave him a meaningful look as she walked out of his office and gestured subtly at his phone. 

He took in a deep inhale and picked up his phone. 

> **Rey at 11:25am**
> 
> I’ll talk to her. You focus on Tom and Kerry. 
> 
> It’ll all work out fine. :) 

The message made him feel better, less irritable, more balanced. 

There was not a good explanation for it, it just happened, like black magic or a potent drug, and Ben caught himself wondering how he actually survived work all those years before she came into his life. 

* * *

He finally got a chance to review her recommendation deck three hours before the actual presentation. This sort of last minute unknown would usually give him a heart attack, but Rey was running with it. Somehow, everything felt like it would be fine. The deck wasn’t what he would have put together, but it got the idea across effectively enough. He made a few minor tweaks here and there and sent it back. 

“Oh my God, did I just create a deck that actually met the impossibly high standard of Ben Solo?” She asked a few moments later, her hand on her chest in mock deference. 

He huffed out an almost laugh. “My standards aren’t impossibly high.”

“Says the guy who is notorious for finding fault in rainbows and butterflies,” she deadpanned. 

He opened his mouth to retort but she came around and gave him a friendly slap on his back, the contact making his mind go blank. 

* * *

“So, I happened to see John at the elevator and we started talking about what he wanted to do with the company in the next four quarters and—” Rey paused to take a bite of the tortilla she loaded with too much lobster fajita. She urgently leaned forward over her plate as the wrap in her hand fell apart in the most ungraceful manner, and grabbed the extra paper napkin he offered to her.

“I told you that was too much fajita.” He raised an eyebrow, before taking another sensible size bite of his grilled chicken salad (dressing on the side, of course). They had been eating together every day during their travel weeks because Rey couldn’t stand eating alone and he couldn’t say no to her.

“I like it this way,” she replied cheekily after wiping the lobster sauce off her chin.

She missed a spot, just to the left side of her mouth. For an unthinking moment, Ben reached over to wipe the spot off her face, but caught himself at the last moment. He felt heat traveling up to his ears as his hand hovered between them. “You missed a spot,” he rasped out and quickly pulled his hand back to his glass of water in a sorry attempt at covering his faux pas.

She somehow didn’t seem to notice. Grinning, her tongue darted out to lick the sauce off her face.

Ben looked away and made himself think about expense reports, the nightmarish layovers in LAX, and mandatory company wide corporate responsibility training. “So, what came out of your conversation with John?”

She looked up from the mountain of fajita she was piling on the fresh tortilla on her plate. “Oh, so I told John about our Phase 2 proposal and he told his PA to schedule a meeting with us to talk more about this on Friday.”

He almost choked on the water he was drinking. John, the CEO of BWO Financial, was notorious for his unavailability. “Wait, he made time for us? This Friday?”

“Mmhmm,” she hummed, seemingly unaware of the miracle she just performed, as though it was just part of the natural order of things, like how water will always run downstream or how the sun rises in the east.

* * *

Ben felt a headache coming on the moment Hux sat down next to him in the kick off session for the two days Republic Consulting Group principles and directors all hands in Denver. 

“Does Snoke know you’re bringing Niima into the pitch at Tellison?” Hux asked under his breath while they clapped half-heartedly for the the first speaker. 

In all honesty, he wasn’t sure. He never explicitly told Snoke of her involvement, but he hadn’t exactly hidden her away either. “She was on the cc of all the email chains.” 

Hux rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. “Right, because Snoke goes through all the cc in the two thousand emails he receives each day.”

He didn’t bother to reply. Seven years of working with Hux had made him an expert at ignoring him when he was irritating, which was often.

“You know Snoke hates it when we bring outsiders into our deal,” Hux continued, his voice darkening to a warning. When Ben ignored him again, he added, “She’s cute, Solo, I’ll give you—”

“That has nothing to do with anything,” Ben hissed before Hux could finish. “Snoke will understand when he sees what she can do.”

“She’s too inexperienced to pitch to a man like Thompson,” Hux retorted. “If she fucks up, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

* * *

The pitch was going badly.

The proposal hadn’t connected with Thompson, the short, ugly, goblin-like CFO of Tellison, and he was becoming more and more unengaged by the minute. To make things worse, his c-suites were asking increasingly difficult questions about price, which was never Republic Consulting Group’s strong point. It pissed Ben off, partly because losing this deal would most definitely set his promotion back by a full year, and partly because he had to tolerate a weekend and two weeknights of Hux for this pitch. Speaking of which, Hux was cowering in the corner like a scared weasel instead of fielding questions. That man was completely useless in a crisis.

He was brainstorming for different ways to recover the pitch when Rey discreetly slide a piece of paper over to him, the tip of her finger faintly brushing against his. 

On the margin, in barely legible script, it read:  _ Let me try something.  _

He looked at her, surprised. She had a dangerously excited and wild glint in her eyes. Whatever her idea was, it was probably rash, and unorthodox, and more than a little insane. He glanced back at Hux, who was still hiding like the coward that he was, and made an executive decision.  _ Screw it.  _

He gave Rey a single, affirmative nod. 

She beamed.

She took a small step forward during the next interlude and made the most unexpected comment: “Mr Thompson, I noticed the hydroponics in your office...” 

Thompson instantly came to attention. 

Hux gawked as the scene unfolded. 

As Rey worked her magic on the client, Ben wondered if this was what it felt like to fall in love. 

* * *

They got the news that they had won the 150 million dollars project at Tellison two weeks later, on a Friday afternoon. The executive partners in the firm, Snoke, Pryde, Luke, and his mother, announced they were going to cover drinks for the whole office. It started off sensibly enough, but the moment the four made gave their congratulations spew and left, Poe and Hux called for shots. They drank the pub out of Grey Goose in an hour and a half and Phas made a group announcement about an after party at The Cube. Ben decided it was time for him to slip out.

He was on his way to the coat check when someone grabbed his arm from behind. 

“Are you leaving already?” Rey asked. 

He had to. If there was one thing Ben hated more than socializing, it was clubbing. The flashing light and loud music always gave him headaches, the crowd always gave him anxiety, and his awkwardly long legs made him a poor dancer. He was about to tell her that, but then she looked at him with those hopeful, pretty brown eyes of hers and leaned in and breathily told him that she really, really wanted him to go to The Cube with her and,  _ well...  
_

He wasn’t  _ that  _ strong. 

He drew in a deep, resigned breath. “Fine, I’ll go.”

* * *

Poe and Hux ordered fourteen bottles of booze, which was ridiculous given there were only twenty-five of them, but it was company money, so, who was he to stop the excess? They were escorted to the coveted balcony (where thankfully the music was at a reasonable level). Mixers were set up and a line of club waitresses with sparklers brought them their too many bottles. Champagne in glass flutes were passed around (which Ben partook), followed by tequila shots (which Ben declined), before the increasingly rowdy group began to migrate onto the dance floor.

Ben poured himself a glass of whisky, and was just about to pick a seat for people watching when Rey approached. “You're not dancing?” she asked, disappointment on the edge of her voice. 

Hux overheard the question and snorted. “Don’t bother Niima, Solo is an old man who hates anything fun.” 

Ben narrowed his eyes  and fought the temptation to throw whisky in the man’s face. “Shut up, Hux. We’re the same age.” 

“You sure you don’t want to join us?” Rey asked again when Hux finally got bored and walked away. 

In the flashing lights of the club, she looked even younger and more out of his league than she usually did. Ben swallowed and shook his head. “I —”

“Rey, you coming?” called the two managers Rey would always have coffee with on Fridays back at the home office. They were half way down the stairs to the dancefloor and sounded understandably impatient. 

“Hey Finn, Rose —”

“You should go dance with your friends,” he stopped her. “You’ve been swaying to the music since you got here.” 

“Okay, but if you change your mind…”

_ He wouldn’t.  _ He shrugged noncommittally and pushed her gently toward her friends.  


* * *

Someone whistled behind him. 

He turned to find Phas in front of him, vodka in hand, obviously having witnessed the whole exchange. “Wow. Hux, was right, You really have it bad, don’t you?” 

Ben sank heavily into the seat next to her and pulled a long drink from his glass. 

Phas rolled her eyes. “You should grow a fucking spine and ask her out.” 

“It’s not that simple.” Partly, because they worked together. Party, because she was ten years his junior. More importantly, he just had no idea what the hell he was even doing. The last time he dated anyone he was still in college, for all he knew, dating had completely changed since then. 

“It is, Solo,” Phas chided, downing her remaining vodka in one fell swoop before standing up. “Stop over thinking everything.”

* * *

He had just about reached the middle of the staircase when he spotted her, making her way up from the bottom. He resisted the instinct to turn around and run up the remaining steps, instead he stood still and counted the seconds until she was right in front of him. 

“Do you want —”

“I was just —”

They both stopped at the same time. She giggled and gestured for him to continue. 

The music was much louder on the staircase than it had been at the balcony and he had to almost shout to let himself be heard. “I was just looking for you.” He was grateful it was dark because he could feel his face flush. God, he was so pathetic.

“Me too,” she yelled back with a breezy grin. “Do you want to have a celebratory drink with me?” 

It seemed as good of an idea as any.

They made their way back up to the booth and poured their respective drink of choice. Gin and tonic for her and whisky, neat for him. She threw herself onto the couch behind them. He steadied his drink and made to follow her when she made a grab of his hand and abruptly pulled him down. At the back of his mind, he marveled at just how small and soft her hand felt against his. 

“Cheers,” she said, holding up her drink and twisting toward him until her knee was touching the side of his leg. “To being the two people who actually won the 150 million dollars project.” 

He was so distracted by the pleasant heat of her knee and the fact she still hadn’t let go of his right hand, he blurted out the first thought he had: “It was all you.” 

“Ooooh! Am I getting praised by the never impressed Ben Solo?” she asked, and in her excitement, her fingers tightened against the back of his hand. 

He was pretty sure his brain was malfunctioning. Because if it wasn’t, he would have pulled his hand back and his eyes definitely wouldn’t have flickered to her lips.  _ Focus, focus, focus on her words.  _ “I don’t know what you are talking about, I’m impressed all the time.”

She sipped her drink and threw her head back and laughed. “Like when?”

_ Like when she critiqued people’s work without making them cry. Like when she stood her ground on what she believed in. Like when she somehow made everyone like her...  _

“I made everyone like me?”

He didn’t realize he had spoken the last bit out loud until she repeated his words to him.  _ Fuck, how much did he have to drink again? _

She was looking at him with wide eyes. “Do you…” she hesitated before she continued, “Like me?”

Ben’s heart skipped a beat, or ten. His mind was spiraling into a spaghetti mess. Was she asking… Surely, she didn’t mean… right?  _ Right? _

“Because I can never quite tell with you,” she continued, leaning into their still conjoined hands. “Because you are always scowling and you almost never return my smile, and you are always  _ so quick _ to move away—”

He kissed her.

It was, Ben thought afterwards, a case of temporary insanity. It wasn’t smooth and earth shattering like the kisses from all the romantic movies he was exposed to as a child by his mother. He didn’t tilt her chin back with his fingers nor shift her head until it was at the perfect angle. She didn’t close her eyes and melt into the kiss. What actually happened was that he impulsively lowered his head and cut her off by pressing his lips to hers without warning. Their noses bumped, it was awkward, but it was the first time he kissed anyone for maybe a decade. 

They pulled back at about the same time, his heart pounding in his chest. For a moment he found himself spinning:  _ Shit! Fuck! What the fuck did he just _ —

But then she placed a small hand around his head, her fingers combing through his hair, and pulled him into a second kiss. “I like you too,” she said against his chin, then kissed him a third time, and with that, everything melted away around him. 

* * *

“Do you want to leave early and go to the Noir Lounge with me?” The question came out in an embarrassing, nervous squeak. 

She was blushing, harder now, and so adorable he wanted to kiss her again. “Are you asking me out on a date?” 

He hadn’t even allowed himself to entertain the idea of dating Rey when the night began, but life never did quite go the way he planned it. He had to accept that sometimes, life happened, and it could be irrefutably, indisputably, absolutely beautiful. 

When he finally answered, his voice was unwavering: 

“Yes, I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> Bench: Consultant speak for people available to be staffed on projects
> 
> Deck: Consultant speak for powerpoint slides
> 
> Hydroponics: A method of growing plants without soil by instead using mineral nutrient solutions in a water solvent.
> 
> RFP: Request for proposal sent by company to service providers, in this case a consulting firm
> 
> Lyrics Sugarland's It Happens: 
> 
> Missed my alarm clock ringing  
Woke up telephone screaming  
Boss man singing his same old song  
Rolled in late about an hour  
No cup of coffee, no shower  
Walk of shame with two different shoes on  
Now it is poor me, why me, oh me  
Boring the same old worn out blah blah story  
There's no good explanation for it at all  
Ain't no rhyme or reason  
No complicated meaning  
Ain't no need to over think it  
Let go laughing  
Life don't go quite like you planned it  
We try so hard to understand it  
Irrefutable, indisputable  
Fact is pssh  
It happens  
My trusty rusty had a flat  
I borrowed my neighbors Cadillac,  
I'll be right back going down to Wally World  
That yellow light turned red too quickly  
Knew that truck the moment it hit me  
Out stepped my ex and his new girl  
Sorry 'bout you neck baby  
But it's poor me, why me, oh me  
Boring the same old worn out blah blah story  
There's no good explanation for it at all  
Ain't no rhyme or reason  
No complicated meaning  
Ain't no need to over think it  
Let go laughing  
Life don't go quite like you planned it  
We try so hard to understand it  
The irrefutable, indisputable  
Fact is  
It happens  
Ain't no rhyme or reason  
No complicated meaning  
Ain't no need to over think it  
Let go laughing  
Life don't go quite like you planned it  
We try so hard to understand it  
The irrefutable, indisputable, fact is  
The irrefutable, indisputable, absolutable totally beautiful  
Fact is,  
It happens


End file.
